I really AM The Sandwich

I've heard the term "sandwich generation" over the last few years, and I've decided that's definitely me. I don't know what kind of sandwich I am, but frankly, I don't even have time to consider it.

I'm forty. My daughters are fourteen and almost eleven.  I've been a stay-at-home mom for the last twelve years, and I have an eighty-two year old mother-in-law (and not one of those, I wish-she'd-go-away mothers-in-law) who is  dying from cancer.

It all comes down to me.  I'm the one who gets the kids out in the morning. I pack lunches, remind the kids to bring their cello/homework/after school sports gear/cell phone/head with them, spend the day doing laundry, writing emails, making appointments (Shoot! I still have to make a dental appointment for the almost eleven year old!) do the grocery shopping, the laundry, clean the house, run to my MIL's (thirty minutes away) to keep tabs on the home health care worker, see if MIL is up for a chat, and come home by three so I can drive kids everywhere. After a homemade dinner, I cajole the kids through showers, homework, negotiate the appropriate amount of computer time, and then lie practically comatose while my fifth grader decides she must, right now, at this very moment, read to me from her book.

It all came to a grinding hault a few days ago.

First, my MIL had such a health crisis that we nearly lost her. That meant three days of crying (mine) while I walked around her house, feeling lost, as if she'd already died. She survived the crisis, but in the meantime, I had developed quite possibly the worst pain ever in my shoulder and running down my arm. On a scale of one to ten, it was a ten.  I said to one person, "I'd rather go through childbirth again." (And I would.) That meant a run to the doctor for me, and some serious narcotics to dull the pain so I could at least sleep more then twenty minutes at a time.

Friday night I took one of those pills that were supposed to make me happy. Both girls were out. I'm sure my husband was looking forward to a quiet dinner and movie, but I was asleep by eight.  On Saturday morning, not only was I no better, but I was worse.  I'd developed a fever and the chills. Great, a bug on top of everything else. I gave up and headed for the serenity of my bed, barking orders, albeit weakly, for my husband to take this one here and that one there, do the laundry, run the dishwasher, clean up the spilled orange jucie from the kitchen floor, and oh yeah, the girls need to be fed, too.

By last night, said husband was practically skipping down the stairs at the thought of going back to work.  He loves his mother but he does not want to hear about whether she has enough adult size diapers to last her a week or whether she can take her medication orally right now. (Don't ask what happens when she can't.)  He loves his daughters but he was tired of driving, driving, driving them everywhere. He didn't get everything I needed at the store.  He was sick of unloading the dishwasher. (Did you know that sometimes you have to run a dishwasher twice a day?!?!)

On the other hand, I was thrilled this morning when I rolled out of bed, fever free, strong enough to get the girls off to school, but not before putting lunch money into said older daughter's account via the computer at six thirty a.m., and asking the other daughter if she remembered the signed form enrolling us in Mother/Daughter Book Club.  I happily folded the laundry, called my mother-in-law (gotta wait until I'm twenty four hours fever free to go visit her again), and visited the chiropractor for my neck.  Yeah, I'm a sandwich. And, actually, I'll take roast beef, please.

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